


Tales To Be Told

by LadyTP



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Ficlets, Gen, Prompt Fic, Reunion, Sibling Relationship, moments in time, prospect of love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4921192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTP/pseuds/LadyTP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of ficlets about ASOIAF world; some canon AUs, some future fics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things You Said When You Thought I Was Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> This collection will be dedicated to short ficlets about the world of A Song of Ice and Fire; prompt fills and possibly some other short stories I have written or will write, not big enough to warrant their own story. Nothing ambitious, mainly for my own love of organisation to have a place for these tales... And hopefully some will entertain you as well!

**Arya and Gendry**

They never slept in a same place for more than one night. They travelled during the light of day, setting up ambushes and delivering ill-begotten goods to those who needed them, avoiding the troops sent to arrest them and visiting farmsteads and poor villages, sometimes stopping to help if help was needed.

Life was a moving stream and Gendry felt as if he was just a part of flotsam and jetsam bobbing helplessly in the waves. It had been like that for years now; their band of brothers regularly changing but doctrines staying the same. Men had come and gone, some eager and thirsty for valiant deeds, some broken and desolate, not caring what they did a long as they _belonged_. Homeless wrecks washed aside by the cruel war, men who had nothing to lose.

Their leaders had come and gone too; Beric Dondarrion had died for the last time, Lady Stoneheart had gone back to the watery grave of her ancestors; Thoros of Myr had disappeared into the darkness one night. In truth they were now leaderless, but what they did had been engraved so deeply into the fabric of brotherhood that no leader was truly needed.

Yes, life had gone on and some days had been good and some had been worse.

And then _she_ had returned.

No more a feisty little urchin who wore her heart on her sleeve for the world to see. No more a young girl dressed in breeches with an attitude more suited to a man seven feet tall. She had changed; reserved and not giving anything away; not a child but a woman. Her eyes were the same serious grey, her childish features morphed to those of a maiden. A beauty, even, with her deep brown locks and full lips.

And by the gods, after her arrival some days were better than ever before, and some days worse than ever.

Gendry had been overjoyed to see his friend again – the best friend he had ever had in his whole life. As for her – he couldn’t make any sense of her feelings. Why was she there? Why hadn’t she travelled to the North where she belonged? Why on some occasions she japed and laughed with him so that the gaping hole in his chest that had been there ever since she had left felt full and warm and all in life was good? And why on others she glared at him and shut herself completely so that all Gendry felt was an icy grip in his chest suffocating life out of him?

He cursed and blessed her return.

They argued often, if for no other reason than that at least then Gendry could see a glimpse of the girl he had known before; all fire and ire. Like this very day.

“Why did you come back?! Why do you stay?! Gods, woman, you will be the death of me yet!” Gendry’s parting remarks had been met only by an icy stare from those cold grey eyes. Seeing there was no way to get through the layers she had built around her Gendry huffed, threw himself on his bedrolls and wrapping his blanket tightly around him turned his back on the girl, sighing exasperatedly.

All around him the rest of their brothers were resting, some snoring, some breathing steadily to the rhythm of blessed sleep. Only the two of them had stayed awake by the campfire and now it was only she who was poking it with a stick, collapsing the partly burned firewood into a small heap from the sounds of it. Gendry forced himself to settle down and take deep breaths. _Sleep and forget about her,_ he commanded his mind.

Just as he was drifting into a slumber he heard stirring by the fire, muttered words said softly but not without a poorly suppressed indignation bleeding through.

“Stupid bull, what do _you_ know? I came home, home to Westeros. And I stayed…I stayed for _you!”_

Every hair in Gendry’s body stood up and shivers shoot down his spine. _For…me?_

Muttering continued. “Stupid, stupid bull! Why can’t you see _that?”_ The sounds of her raising up and walking to her own bedrolls, then shuffling as she made a nest to herself. A deep sigh, then silence.

It took every ounce of Gendry’s self-control to stop himself getting up and going to her that very second, but he did it. She was a complicated creature and he had his work cut out for him if he was to reach her as he wanted - as _she_ wanted – but by the gods, he was going to do it!

And as Gendry fell asleep, the gaping hollow in his chest that had been both warm and cold because of her, it _burned, burned, burned._


	2. Things You Said When I Was Crying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another prompt fill for a meme "Things You Said...", this time about Stark sisters reunion. Rating: one handkerchief!

**Sansa and Arya**

“And I have been here ever since.” Sansa halted, feeling exhausted for having used the last remains of her self-control to prevent her voice breaking.

The stony-faced stranger opposite to her said nothing, only stared. The dark grey eyes were known to her; they were the eyes of her father – their father. The face was long, the features familiar – and still behind that façade was someone she didn’t recognise.

The girl had sneaked into the Gates of the Moon unnoticed; just a shadow, a flicker at the corner of Sansa’s eye as she had entered her chamber for the night. The shock she had felt at the presence of a stranger had momentarily turned to fear, then to elation and finally to bewilderment. It was Arya, her wild little sister – and it wasn’t.

Now the girl was leaning against the wall near the window, her gaze flickering every now and then between that and the door. Even during the brief time she had observed her Sansa had noticed how she never turned her back to her or to the door. There was something unnerving in someone whose guard was so obviously raised and that served only to increase her own discomfort.

“And where have you been all this time?” She had to try to reach the yawning gap between them. When Sansa had attempted to lay a hand on her shoulder the girl had shied away like a nervous young filly, unaccustomed to touch of a human. The only words she had uttered were a confirmation that she was indeed Arya Stark, and an abrupt question – almost an accusation – of what Sansa was doing in the Vale.

No answer. The silence between them extended and with it grew Sansa’s desolation. As long as she had believed that Arya could still be alive somewhere, safe from the horrors the rest of their family had endured, she had held on to a hope that not all was lost. That she was not the only one left. She had sometimes chastised herself for clutching onto a fool’s fancy; what was the likely fate of a young girl in a big city teeming with enemies? Things more horrid than death could be her lot and wishing her still to be alive might be crueller than acknowledging the loss of her. 

And still, hope against hope, Sansa had dreamed of setting her eyes on her mischievous little sister again.

The girl – Arya – stirred, turned to the window and closed the shutters with a decisive move. Then she walked to the bed and sat down gingerly and as far away from Sansa as was possible in the confines of that small space. Her expression was inscrutable and her shoulders hunched in a protective and yet defiant posture.

Something inside Sansa broke then and with it the tension that had kept her going. She had forced herself to stay strong to tell her story, no matter that its audience had shown about the same amount of interest towards it as had the old stone wall behind her. The girl’s eyes had stayed hard and her demeanour sour all through Sansa’s tale, no signs betraying her emotions. Whatever had happened to Arya had clearly been too much, too destructive, too damaging. _She is gone. Arya is gone and a stranger has taken her place_. Tears Sansa had bravely fought against broke free and this time she didn’t care. Whatever she did was unlikely to have effect on this odd creature, this empty shell of the little girl she had once known.

Sansa burrowed her face in her hands and let the misery of memories she had just re-awakened to flow through; loss of her father, her brothers, her mother – and now lastly, her only sister. Wretched and heartbroken she cried, every breath and sniffle painful but she didn’t care. For the longest time she wallowed in her grief, almost forgetting the presence of another soul in the room.

Eventually the tears slowed down and she came to a hiccupping end of her grief. Head still downcast she stared at her hands, roughened and with dirty fingernails after the day’s toils in the garden. Bastard daughters had to earn their keep, even bastards otherwise spoiled by their indulging ‘fathers’.

Then she heard it. Hardly a whisper – more like a breath exhaled.

“I saw him.”

Sansa looked up, not sure if she had heard it right. The girl – Arya – had not moved but stared at a point somewhere behind Sansa’s head.

“I saw how father was pushed down, how they forced his neck on the block, and…” She stopped. If her voice had not by now been raised Sansa would not have believed her to have spoken at all, so motionless she sat.

“I was at the Twins when mother…and Robb…” An audible swallow. “I didn’t see her but after I saw Robb with Grey Wind’s head…”

Sansa’s heart recoiled when she realised the horrors Arya had witnessed. She stared at the pale face with its hard features and there, in front of her eyes, it started to crumble. Glistening of eyes, an involuntary twitch of a mouth, a furrow of a brow. Carefully, very carefully Sansa extended her hand and let it hover above a slumped shoulder for a while before letting it descend until she touched her.

This time the stranger didn’t withdraw but after a moment leaned subtly forward. Sansa didn’t wait for a further signal but tenderly pulled the now yielding form towards her. “Arya,” she hummed.

And then the tears came. Not like a barricade that bursts after summer rains with sudden might and ferocity, but like a dam with a tiniest weakness in it, weakness that allows first a faint drip, then a heavier trickle and finally an inevitable flood to flow through.

Sansa pressed the weeping girl against her chest and embraced her bony shoulders and lithe body, murmuring soothing sounds in soft undertones into her ear. She quivered and writhed but didn’t resist. And with ever sob, with every whimper, with every touch of her fingers clasping Sansa’s arms Sansa felt herself being mended and rebuilt; a small flame of hope she had thought had just been snuffed out started to gather strength again. _I am not alone. She is not alone. We have each other._


End file.
